The In Between
by Heather Kind
Summary: Some of the most interesting stuff never made it on the screen. Here's my take on what happened during some big chunks of off-screen time. The relevant episode number is in the chapter title. Each chapter stands alone; you can read them in any order.
1. 503 Mind Games - The Visit

**5.03 Mind Games – Nate, Ruth, and Charlie visit Miami**

"Yeah, Ma," Michael said flatly into the phone.

"Michael, you said you'd be here an hour ago. Where the hell are you? You're going to miss them."

"They'll be here for four days, Ma. I'm not going to miss them. I'll be there soon. I'm . . . working on something."

"Oh, for god's sake, Michael. Put down whatever you're doing and get over here. It's your brother. And your nephew."

"Okay, Ma. Okay." Michael tossed the phone on the bed and sighed.

"You can't avoid it forever," Fiona said from the green chair still held together with duct tape.

"I'd hardly call it forever, Fi. They got there three hours ago."

"It's just a baby, Michael. I can't believe you're so scared to be around him." She got up and walked the few feet to the kitchen area of the loft.

Michael rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You're telling me you'd do any better with one?"

"I've been around plenty of babies," she said, getting a bottle of water from the fridge. "Are you forgetting where I'm from?"

"You're out of practice at a minimum," he replied. Letting out a big yawn, he said, "I'm really tired for some reason. I want to sleep for a while before I go over there." He smiled. "Want to join me?"

Fiona's face turned serious. "You're tired because you didn't sleep last night, and you didn't sleep because you had two nightmares."

Michael was quiet. "It's to be expected, Fi," he said eventually. "You may have noticed I've been under some stress the last few years."

"Right, and you're not doing yourself any favors by continuing to immerse yourself in that world. It's finished. It ended with a suicide in Venezuela."

"I'm not sure it ended," Michael said.

She scoffed. "Really. The gunshot to Kessler's temple isn't final enough for you?"

"I'm saying I'm not sure it ended with Kessler. It's classic strategy. The real boss hides and makes everyone think someone else is the boss. Even his own team doesn't know he's the boss."

"So now there's a secret boss?"

"Maybe."

"Then why, in the six months you and half the CIA were working on this, did nobody find even a shred of evidence of someone higher than Kessler?"

Michael didn't answer.

Fiona sat down next to him on the bed and sandwiched his hand in hers. "This isn't healthy, Michael. It's over. You've got to let this go."

"If I let it go, can I take a nap before we go over there?"

She blew a raspberry at him.

* * *

><p>"We're here," Fiona sang as they walked through Madeline's front door later that afternoon.<p>

"Hey!" called Nate, running to greet them. "Looking good, bro!" He threw his arms around Michael, who stood still. "And Fiona, you're as hot as ever."

Michael wrinkled his face and pulled away from Nate's bear hug. "Excuse me?"

"Shut up, Michael," Fiona said. "I am." She embraced Nate and kissed him on the cheek. "Lovely to see you, Nate. Where're Ruth and the baby?" she asked.

"She's changing his diaper. They'll be out in just a second."

"Where's Mom?" Michael asked. "Did she leave?" He forced himself not to smile.

"Hardly. She's supervising Ruth," said Nate.

"Supervising?" Fiona asked.

"Don't get me started," Nate replied. "So c'mon, Bro, come sit down. You want a beer? You want one, Fi?"

"Please."

"Mike?"

"Yeah, I'll have one." Michael sat on the smoke-ridden fabric couch and jumped up when something clanged. He looked where he'd been sitting and pulled a doughnut-shaped ring of plastic from the between the cushions. The top was clear, the bottom was red, and he could see a bunch of small pellets in assorted colors inside the doughnut. He looked at it blankly, then looked at Nate, who was coming out of the kitchen.

"It's a rattle, Bro."

"Oh." He still looked confused as he inspected it. "What does it do?"

"Rattle."

"Oh."

Fiona took the bottle Nate offered her. "Thank you. So tell us. How's fatherhood?" she asked, taking a swig.

"Oh my god, guys, it's so awesome." He handed the other bottle to Michael and sat next to him on the couch. "Charlie's just . . . oh, wow, he's just so great. He's starting to smile and the other day, I swear to god, he laughed. He laughed! I don't even know what he was laughing at, but he laughed. And his skin is so soft, and he smells all good. Well, except when he takes a dump. That's foul, man. You never smelled anything like it in your life, Bro. I guarantee it. I don't know how it's possible for him to shit that much. I mean, he barely eats. But, you know, somehow he does it." He laughed and took a drink from his own bottle. "I'm actually kinda proud of him. He's not some sissy shitter."

Michael smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded, waiting for it to end.

Ruth emerged from the bathroom with Madeline right behind her. "Hey, speak of the devil!" Nate announced. "There's my boy," he said as he bounded over to Ruth. She was cradling Charlie horizontally. Nate carefully wrapped his big hands around his son's tiny body and lifted him away from Ruth. "Mike, Fi, I'd like you to meet Charles Elias Westen. Charlie, this is your aunt and uncle!" Nate turned to Fiona and leaned his head to her. "I'm telling him you're his aunt because I don't really know how else to explain your relationship," he said quietly.

"Also because he's two months old," Michael said under his breath.

Fiona kicked him. "Aunt is fine. My nieces and nephews all call me Auntie Fi." She looked down to Charlie. "Well, hello there, Charles Elias Westen," Fiona cooed. "What a handsome young man you are." She gently stroked his soft cheek with her thumb. "Oh, Ruth, he's divine," she said.

"Thank you, Fiona. I think so, too." Ruth beamed.

"He favors you quite a bit, I think," Fiona said. "He's got your coloring for sure. That corn silk hair. So sweet."

"We'll see how long it lasts," Ruth said. "Everyone says it's going to get dark like his daddy's."

"One can only hope," Madeline said with a fake smile. "Otherwise they may think you got yourself knocked up and suckered my son into being a daddy." She fake laughed.

A bizarre smile formed on Ruth's face. Michael suddenly felt connected to her. Not many people got to experience Madeline like he did. Now Ruth belonged to that exclusive club.

"So, Bro, what do you think?" Nate asked excitedly.

"He's very nice," Michael said.

"You wanna hold him?"

"Oh, uh, I don't – I don't think that's a good idea," he stammered. "He seems content with you. I don't want to disturb him."

"Oh, c'mon, Bro, it's easy! Here, sit down. I'll get him situated for you." Michael didn't move.

"Sit down, Michael," Madeline snapped. "Jesus."

"All right, Ma," sighed Michael. He sat down. "What do I do?" he asked Nate.

"You're perfect just like that, Bro. Just kinda make a basket with your arms. Here, like this." Nate adjusted Michael's arms with one hand while cradling Charlie against his chest with the other. "Okay, here you go!" He gently placed Charlie in Michael's arms. His arms were always sturdy, but today they were as stiff as logs. Michael didn't breathe. "Relax, Bro. You're doing great. You won't break him."

"He probably feels fragile because he's just wearing that thin little shirt," Madeline said. "When babies are wrapped up in blankets like they should be to keep them warm, they feel more secure. And it's easier to hold them."

Ruth got her permagrin again. "Fiona, I'm going for a little mani/pedi pampering later. It's Nate's gift to me. You wanna come?" Her eyes pleaded.

"Umm, sure, that'd be lovely. Just us?" Fiona asked tentatively, glancing at Madeline.

Permagrin still plastered on her face. "Yep, just us! I thought I'd give Madeline as much time as possible with her grandson."

Madeline fake smiled back and instinctively took a cigarette out of her pouch.

"Ma!" "Mom!" "No!" yelled Nate, Michael, and Ruth.

She looked startled, and then she figured it out. "Whoops, sorry. Force of habit. I'll be in the backyard. Enjoy your pedicure, Ruth. How nice it must be to just forget you're a mother. I never had that luxury." All said with a smile. Then she slammed the back door behind her.

Ruth let out the breath she'd been holding since they came into the living room. "Nate, I swear, I can't take her for four days," she whimpered as she leaned against him. "_Thin little shirt_? It's 85 degrees in this house! Why can't we stay in a hotel?"

Nate wrapped his arms around her. "It'll be okay, baby. Mike and I survived. She's really not that bad once you get to know her."

"_Not that bad_? She's horrible, Nate! She hates me. She thinks I'm a terrible mother."

"No, she doesn't," Nate said, trying to sound reassuring. "Mike, tell her that's just how she is."

Michael was still sitting ramrod straight and motionless with Charlie in his arms. Charlie was fidgeting, trying to get comfortable with a most uncomfortable person. "Would you like him back?" he asked nobody in particular.

Ruth walked to him and rescued Charlie. Both Charlie and Michael relaxed immediately. "What were you saying, Nate?" he asked.

"I said tell her that's just how Mom is." He turned back to Ruth and kissed her. "She doesn't hate you, baby. I promise."

Michael leaned back on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table. "She hates everyone, Ruth. It's not personal."

Ruth scoffed. "Great."

"In her mind, nobody's good enough for her baby," Fiona said.

"Did she hate you at first?" Ruth asked. Realizing she'd backed herself into a corner, Fiona looked to Michael. The truth would make Ruth feel worse.

"No, but that's because she holds me in low esteem," said Michael. "She thinks I'm not good enough for Fi."

Fiona nodded.

"Ugh. Nate, seriously, let's go to a hotel," Ruth said. "We'll tell her . . . I don't know, we'll tell her Charlie's having a reaction to all the smoke or something."

Nate tried to talk under his breath to Ruth. "Baby, we don't have the money for a hotel." But Michael and Fiona heard him anyway. An awkward silence sat heavy in the room.

"You know," Fiona said after a few moments, "we never got you a baby gift. Or a wedding gift, for that matter. Let this be our gift to you. Stay wherever you'd like. It's Michael's and my treat."

Michael stared at her.

"Oh, no, Fiona. We couldn't do that. It's too much," said Ruth.

"Nonsense. We'd love to do it."

Michael stared at her some more.

"Listen," Fiona continued, "either you two go to a hotel, or you stay in the loft and **we'll** go to a hotel. We're spending the money either way. Wouldn't you prefer to be in some oasis on the beach instead of that pit?"

"Hey," Michael said.

"Well?" she asked.

Nate and Ruth exchanged one final glance. "We'd love it," Ruth said, hugging Fiona. "Oh, Fiona, thank you soooo much. And thank you, Michael! Best brother-in-law ever!" Ruth hopped on the couch next to him and threw her arms around him. Michael looked as uncomfortable as he did when he was holding Charlie. He smiled and waited for it to end.

The oven timer buzzed. Fiona went to investigate. "Well, that explains the smell. Your mom made meatloaf," she said.

Ruth looked at Nate. "You were supposed to tell her I'm a vegetarian!"

"I did," said Nate. "And now I understand the meatloaf."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: I'm excited about this collection. The show alluded to so many gaps of time but wasn't able to develop them. I'm developing some of them. I'm not going in order, so you'll see me bounce from season to season. You can read them in any order as well; each story can stand alone. I look forward to reading your comments.


	2. 504 No Good Deed - Fucking Ketamine

**5.04 No Good Deed – Overnight at Eve's beach house**

Ketamine.

Of course.

Michael got ketamine about fifteen years ago before an operation in a MASH unit in Bosnia. He'd been there to infiltrate a particularly nasty group of Serbs. The Serbs didn't hurt him, though. No, the idiot who'd picked him up from the airport was showing off, and he'd flipped the town car into a ditch. Michael had broken his arm. And, par for his course, he'd **broken **it. He needed immediate surgery. Rather than having to come up with a cover to go to a real hospital, he'd opted to take advantage of a recently-installed U.S. field hospital in the area. The good thing about U.S. field hospitals is the staff knows to forget their patients once they're gone. The bad thing about U.S. field hospitals is that they're field hospitals. They do things quick and dirty, like using ketamine instead of a real surgical anesthetic. So Michael got ketamine.

And then Michael hallucinated, even though they'd given him an antihallucinogen along with the ketamine. Little blue guys stood guard around his bed. Dolphins leapt across the room. That sort of thing. Also his blood pressure soared. And his gastrocnemius kept going into spasm, which is damn annoying when you're down an arm and can't rub the muscle. All this lasted for a good twenty-four hours.

So when Eve said she'd laced a needle with ketamine, Michael spent the few seconds he was lucid groaning internally. Because he knew.

Fucking ketamine.

* * *

><p>Michael wasn't surprised to wake up groggy. He <strong>was<strong> surprised to be nearly suffocated fifteen seconds later. Luckily his Michaelness kicked in. He redirected Eve's anger to Dean Myers **and** arranged for Sam, Fiona, and Jesse to come rescue him. Not bad for being drugged and almost dead.

In a way, he felt bad for Eve. She was out of her element. She's a hacker, not a kidnapper. She made the classic rookie interrogator mistake of jumping right to _Talk or I'll kill you_ without even trying to get the information less violently. Some do it with a gun to the head. She used a plastic bag and a zip tie. There was something kind of MacGyver about it Michael admired once he wasn't dying.

Now, sometimes you need drama right from the start. Michael could appreciate that. You get a big, burly, enforcer-type guy in the chair, then subtlety and threats may not do it. He may need to feel like he's dying a time or two before he's ready to listen to reason. So you water board him, cut off his air supply, whatever.

But this wasn't one of those situations, and, really, not many are. Most people will tell you everything you want to know and then some. Sure, they may act tough for a little while, but one slap or one threat to their kid and they'll spill their guts. And a petty thief like Baxter? He would rat out his boss before Eve finished her question.

Michael briefly regretted making Baxter a dummy. If Michael were taped to that chair, he could explain to Eve that the plastic bag was unnecessary. Not only that, it was counterproductive. A, she might accidentally kill him before she got what she needed. You can't screw around with people's airways unless you know what you're doing. B, assuming she didn't kill him, now he knows he can withstand the worst she can afford to dole out, and that gives him leverage. _You want me to give you a name? Fuck you. Sure, bring the bag back. It'll help me sleep._ And C, it's next to impossible to salvage a relationship that begins with so great a power imbalance. Once you almost kill a guy, he's never going to trust you, no matter how nice you play afterwards. It's much more effective to move gradually from friendly to cold to vicious.

But Michael wasn't taped to that chair. Baxter was. Educating Eve would have to wait.

* * *

><p>"All right, tell me about this crew of yours," she said. She was sitting backwards on a chair about six feet away from Michael, pointing a gun at his chest.<p>

"It's two guys and this chick they knew. Local crew."

"You mean there's actually a woman who'll work with you? What, is she attracted to sex offenders or something?"

"She's attracted to rollin' around in a buncha hundreds on her bed."

"And why would this local crew help you now? I wouldn't help you."

"'Cause they ain't gonna get paid otherwise."

"They _ain't gonna get paid_ at all," Eve said mockingly.

"They don't know that."

Eve nodded and was quiet for a moment. "Tell me their names and where I can find them."

"Okay, so the old guy's name is Chuck, uhh, damn, what's his name again? Oh yeah, Chuck Finley. You know, like the baseball player?"

"Whatever. What about the other two?"

"The other guy don't have a name. I mean, he won't tell me his real name. I call him Cue Ball on account of his head. And the girl is called Brianna."

"Where are they?"

"I was supposed to meet 'em at 8:00 at Tapas and Tintos right there off Washington."

Eve looked at her watch. "You better hope they're still there."

"Yeah, you're tellin' me."

Eve got up and walked sideways to a bar area separating the kitchen and living room, never taking her eyes or her gun off Michael. He watched as she put her gun on the counter and retrieved a small syringe.

"Oh, come on, Evie, you don't gotta do that," Michael said. "Where'm I gonna go? You got me taped real good here. Look." He pulled on the bonds on his wrists and ankles. "See? See? Nothin'."

"This is more fun," she said with a smirk.

"Hey, you want me to be tip top tomorrow, don't ya? I can't be all doped up."

"It'll wear off by then. Hold still."

Michael exhaled deeply as she jammed the needle into his left deltoid.

Again, if he were Michael, he could explain how dangerous it is to leave a sedated person alone. All sorts of bad stuff can happen. That's why the rule is: give a dose and stay real close.

Fucking ketamine.

* * *

><p>He woke up a few hours later. After some initial confusion, then a few primal jerks against the duct tape, Michael's head cleared. His heart rate was faster than usual. Nothing to get worked up about. His muscles felt okay, despite his having been stuck to a chair for six hours. Maybe the hallucinations would come, but they weren't here now. Finally something was breaking his way.<p>

He looked around and listened. Eve didn't seem to be home. He figured it was after midnight.

First things first. He directed all his energy into his right arm, the stronger of the two, and tried to loosen the tape's grip on his wrist. He did that for three or four minutes, then froze when he heard a car engine. The engine turned off, the car door slammed shut, and within ten seconds Eve was in the house.

"Good morning, sunshine!" she sang when she saw he was awake. "Good nap?"

"Yeah, yeah, it hit the spot. You find my guys?"

"Indeed I did. You know, you should've told me Brianna was your girlfriend, Baxter. I would've brought her flowers."

Michael tightened imperceptibly. Eve's knowledge that Fiona was special to him added a layer of danger and stress to an already pretty awful situation.

"You want something to eat?" she called from the kitchen.

He wouldn't take food from an abductor in the best of times. He certainly wouldn't take it from a drug-happy lunatic. "No, thanks. I'm good."

"Good, because you can't have anything anyway."

Michael rolled his eyes. Juvenile.

A few minutes later, Eve returned to the living room with a plate and old-fashioned, glass bottle of Coke. When she sat on the couch, Michael could see her snack choices. Three fruit roll-ups, Ritz crackers, and what looked like a giant glob of mayonnaise. He watched as she dipped a cracker in mayo and popped it in her mouth.

"Quite an assortment you got there," he said.

"Shut up."

He nodded and stared at her as she continued to eat. And she stared at him as she continued to eat.

"How old do you think I am?" she asked after a while. She had a strange look to her. Human. Vulnerable.

Michael knew instantly where this was going. Napoleon complex. Classic case. She was a woman in a man's world, except she looked like a girl, not a woman. Probably never got taken seriously. That would explain her overkill. So much to prove. Fiona had experienced something similar when she started out. Definitely explained **her** overkill. So while Michael understood the complexity of emotions Eve was probably feeling, he didn't care, and he was in no mood to play therapist and/or cheerleader.

On the other hand, his priority was to survive, and she was handing him an opportunity to do two things to help him survive: humanize himself and learn about her. So therapist and/or cheerleader he would be.

"I'm scared to answer," he said truthfully. "You'll probably shoot me if I get it wrong."

Eve looked down. She seemed ashamed. Another human emotion. Michael knew she was getting tired. "No, go ahead. It's okay," she said softly.

Michael pretended to inspect her. "I dunno, maybe 'bout twenty-five?" He figured that was close, even though she looked fifteen. He could see her eyes widen, an involuntary signal he'd surprised her. And made her happy, evidently, based on the tiny smile she tried to hide. "Am I close?" he asked.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact." She hesitated, then said, "Most people think I'm still in high school."

"You? No, no, no, no, no. You're way too smart to still be in high school. For sure you went to college. You probably got a whole buncha letters after your name."

"Actually, I've never been to school."

Michael put a surprised expression on his face. "Huh? Whaddya mean, you never been to school? Everybody's been to school for a little while at least. I went up through Thanksgivin' of sophomore year."

"My parents unschooled me. They taught me everything themselves. No school."

He burst out laughing. "_Unschooled_?" He snorted. "You know what they call that where I come from? _Fuckin' around_. I didn't know we could call it school. Damn, I coulda had a Ph.D. by now."

Eve laughed unintentionally, then looked embarrassed.

"Hey, could I ask you something'?" Michael said. "Why you in this line of work? Smart as you are, you could make millions at some computer job or somethin'."

She picked up her bottle of Coke and leaned back on the couch. "I don't want a boss," she said before she took a long swig.

"I could see that, I could see that," said Michael, nodding. "I like makin' my own hours, too." He decided to push a little more since she was receptive to talking. "What do your parents think you do? I mean, me, my old man was in the joint more than he wasn't. No surprise I went into the family business. But you, yours are probably legit, right?"

Eve snorted. "They're about as far from legit as you can get. They're missionaries."

Michael wrinkled his forehead. "What, you mean like teachin' god and stuff?"

"I mean brainwashing people in Paraguay who don't know any better."

"What's your beef with god?" he asked, making sure to put a defensive edge to his tone.

"I don't have a beef with god. I have a beef with the assholes who pretend they're the gatekeepers for god. I mean, priests? I have to go through them to get to god? Give me a break. Total racket."

Michael feigned indignance. "When my mother, god rest her soul, lay dyin' from emphysema in '94, Father Andrew was the only one who could make her feel better. Beautiful man. God rest his soul, too." He leaned his chest down and made the sign of the cross as best he could.

She rolled her eyes.

"Anyway," Michael said, making his voice break a little, "you didn't answer me. What do they think you do?"

"Labor and delivery nurse." She scoffed and looked away.

"Somethin' wrong?" he asked. He was genuinely puzzled.

"They always wanted me to be a nurse."

"Yeah?"

"Never occurred to them to encourage me to be a doctor. Of course I'd want to be a nurse. That's all women can be—teachers and nurses. And mothers." She sounded disgusted.

"Nursin' is a real hard job," Michael said. "My ex was a nurse. You gotta be wicked smart."

She didn't say anything.

"The nurses do all the hard shit, you know? Doctors, they just come in and tell everybody what to do, but they don't know how to do it. The nurses gotta do it."

"Look, right or wrong, nurses are second-class citizens compared to doctors."

"So you wanna be a doctor?" he asked.

"No, I don't want to be a doctor. That's not the point," Eve snapped.

He furrowed his brow. "I'm kinda confused here, Evie."

"Forget it. Just shut up." She reached over to the end table next to the couch and picked up one of five remote controls. She pushed some buttons to turn on the sixty-inch TV behind and to the left of Michael. He couldn't see the screen, but he could see soft clouds of light dancing on the wall far in front of him, and he could hear through speakers well positioned throughout the room. He heard the friendly _blip, blip, blip_ as Eve scrolled through her DVR's list of recorded episodes. Then he heard a familiar voice telling him that in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups.

Michael had to laugh, to himself of course, at the ridiculousness of his situation. He was being held captive by a sociopathic, vicious hacker who could probably turn off the power on the eastern seaboard if she set her mind to it, and she was watching a Law & Order rerun.

Eve lay down on the couch and curled into a semi-fetal position as she stared at the screen. Michael was amazed that she'd allow herself to be seen in such a vulnerable state. It reminded him, again, that she was young and she was tired.

"Hey, you mind if I scoot myself around so I could see, too?" Michael asked. He didn't care about the program. He wanted to assess their relationship. Was she more trusting, more permissive now? They'd shared a couple of moments, after all. And her exhaustion was showing.

"Move and I'll shoot you in the foot."

Nope.

So for forty-three minutes, Michael watched Eve as Eve watched Jerry Orbach and friends. He learned a lot about her, as he knew he would—how she paid attention, what she found interesting, the look on her face when she understood enough of the plot to let her mind wander for a minute.

When the show ended, Eve turned off the TV and looked at Michael. "You're going to piss on my floor, aren't you."

He stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out her angle. "Wasn't plannin' on it, but yeah, now that you mention it, I wouldn't mind takin' a leak."

She left through a side door and came back about a minute later carrying an amorphous armful of metal. As she neared Michael, he could see that it was a length of chain, probably four feet. She squatted down near him and coiled one end around his right ankle three times, then repeated the process on his left ankle. She wove a padlock through a few of the links and snapped it shut.

"Damn," he said. "You're good at that. You do this a lot?"

She glared at him as she tugged the padlock to make sure it was secure. She stood up and pulled a pair of scissors from her back pocket. He grimaced as she cut through the duct tape around his right wrist, knowing what was coming. "OW. Fuck," he yelled as she yanked the tape off his skin.

"Take the rest off," she ordered. She retrieved her gun from the counter and kept it trained on him.

Michael shook his right arm out a bit, then got to work unsticking the tape around his left wrist. "You know, I had to grab somebody one time. I owed this guy some money. He was – well, I ain't gonna lie. He was my bookie. Joe Wang. You ever seen a Chinese bookie before? Anyway, I was into him pretty good and I didn't have the dough, so he told me I could pay it off by workin' for him. At first it was just smackin' around some other guys who owed him money. I felt bad about that, you know? I mean, there but for the grace of god go I, right? Kinda felt guilty not tellin' 'em to go see about workin' for Wang, but then I figured, hey, it's them or me, and I choose me." He took a deep breath and exhaled hard as he ripped the last layer off his skin. He clenched his fist and banged it on the arm of the chair a few times, waiting for the pain to subside.

"Legs, too," she said.

"You got it, boss." That tape was stuck to his pants, so it was painless to remove, but it still took time. "Anyway, couple weeks into it, he had me grab some chick. Girlfriend of one of his repeat offenders. Guess that's how he was gonna make his point. You never heard someone scream like that, Evie. You'd think I was killin' her. All I did was put her in the trunk. Didn't lay a hand on her other than that." Finally detached from the chair, he stretched his arms and legs (as much as they could stretch chained together, anyway), grateful for the freedom.

Freedom was short-lived. Eve threw him a thick, black cable tie. "Tie your hands."

He took a few final stretches and wiggles, then inserted the end of the tie through the slit. He put his hands through the large oval and pulled the end with his teeth.

"Tighter."

He rolled his eyes and pulled it tighter.

"Get up."

Michael stood up slowly. His legs felt like spaghetti.

"Go." She gestured to a hallway with her gun. "Slowly. Don't . . . try . . . anything," she said menacingly.

He shuffled along and continued his story. "So like I was sayin', all I did was put her in the trunk. I didn't have to do nothin' to her. I just drove around for two or three hours and then took her back home." Michael stopped at a half bathroom and looked at her, waiting for approval.

"Thirty seconds."

Michael went inside the small room. "Probably too much to ask for some privacy, huh?" He smiled Baxter's goofy smile.

"Twenty-four seconds."

"Aye aye, cap'n." He made his way to the toilet and managed to take care of business within the time limit and without peeing on himself. "I'm just gonna wash my hands, all right? That's all. Don't worry. I ain't gonna do nothin'."

She didn't say anything, so he took that as a yes. Like with the TV, he didn't care about washing his hands. Well, he did as a general matter. Not so much today. What he cared about today was seizing another opportunity to evaluate the relationship. The fact that she let him do something that was his idea was a good sign.

"Let's go," she said, tilting her head back to the living room.

Michael walked more slowly this time, to see how she'd react. Nothing. Another good sign. "That lady, you know, I'm real glad I didn't have to get her out. I didn't really know what I was gonna do with her. I mean, you got all this equipment here, the tape and chain and stuff. That's real professional, you know? That's good. I didn't have none of that. Wasn't all prepared like you. I sure as shit didn't have no Special K."

"Sit down."

"On the couch?" he asked brightly with that same stupid grin.

She stared at him and narrowed her eyes. He sat back down on the hard chair. She reached to the counter again and pulled another syringe out of a small box.

"Ugh, come on, Evie. Please? That shit's awful, girl. Look, have I tried anything? No. I ain't tried to run this whole time. We been havin' some nice conversations. We're, well, I guess we're not friends, but I been friendly. I been nothin' but friendly to you. You don't need that needle. Come on. Please. Come on. I ain't goin' nowhere, not like this." He shook his bound fists and rattled the chain around his ankles to emphasize his point. "Okay? Come on."

She put the syringe back in the box.

"Oh, thank you, girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

She approached him and ripped a length of duct tape from the roll. She taped his ankles thoroughly to the chair legs. Michael figured she was finished, but she went back and did the same thing around his calves.

"Guess I can't complain about this since you were nice enough not to give me that poison again." He laughed halfheartedly.

Eve went down that same hallway and returned with a black pillowcase. She dropped it on Michael's lap. "Put it over your head."

"Why?" he said.

"Shut up and do it."

He did it, eventually. It took some doing with his hands tied as tightly as they were. "Isn't this what they do to tell birds to go to sleep?" he said from under the pillowcase. He heard duct tape being ripped again. Then he heard a heavy _snip_ and felt an immediate release as the cable tie fell from his wrists. Then, before he could do much of anything, she'd re-taped his right wrist to the arm of the chair.

Michael felt a little proud of Eve. She knew there was no way to avoid freeing his hands for a few seconds. So she did the next best thing: she blinded him so he would be surprised—and unprepared—when she did it. That took some forethought. She was improving. His pride quickly gave way to annoyance as she taped his wrists and his forearms to the chair. That was a damn lot of hair he was going to lose.

He didn't hear or feel anything for about ten seconds. "Hey, uh, could you take this thing off? It's getting' a little hot under here." A moment later, it was off. "Ahh. Thank you. That's better." He stretched and turned his neck a couple of times, stopping just in time to see Eve get the syringe again.

"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me?" he shouted. "What was all this for?" He tensed his arms and pulled against the tape.

"To make sure you don't go anywhere when I go to bed."

"And I ain't goin' nowhere, so what's the hell's that for?"

"My amusement."

He sighed loudly and waited for the now-familiar prick to his arm.

Fucking ketamine.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: I had a ball writing this one. Anson said Michael was exceptionally skilled at social engineering, at making his targets like him. That's what I've always imagined he had to do overnight at Eve's house. And Eve - boy, was she ever fun to develop. Hope you enjoyed the story!


	3. 603 Last Rites - Glass

**6.03 Last Rites - Michael visits Fiona in prison**

Screaming. The last time he heard her voice, she was screaming at him – screaming her rage, her frustration, her hurt, at his betrayal. He robbed her of her choice. He'd done that once before, and she'd screamed the same way that time. Except that time he didn't hear it. He was probably halfway to the States. Instead she had to settle for screaming at his clothes. The book he'd been reading. The empty bottle of merlot he was supposed to put in the bin but didn't. The antique Webley .455 revolver used by an Orangie in the 1920s she'd gotten him for Christmas. The rubble of Michael Westen.

This time he heard her. He knew he couldn't talk her out of turning herself in, because any rational discussion would inevitably end with her standing on the steps of the federal building exactly as she did. It had to. It was the only right answer. So he chained her to his decision, his choice. Literally chained her. A dirty trick, not at all surprising once she thought about it, but a dirty fucking trick nonetheless. And that, more than anything, guaranteed she was going to surrender or die trying. He chained her to his choice; she was goddamn well going to chain him to hers.

But it's hard to stay mad at someone who was trying to save your life. And pretty soon, once the flames of that moment have turned to soot, once you can think clearly, you again conclude yes, you were right; this is the only choice you could make. But who cares if you were right, you ask yourself, because you're trapped, probably for the rest of your life, and you've decimated the only person who wasn't willing to let you die in a cage.

All this was running through Fiona's mind as she walked down a pale hallway made sickly by the fluorescent lights. Escorting her by the upper arm, the guard stopped a couple of feet shy of the doorway to the visitation room and uncuffed her hands from behind her back. The last time Michael touched her, it was to lock her to a metal wall. The last time he saw her, she was being handcuffed at gunpoint by the country he'd devoted his life to. To force him to see her controlled and humiliated again – still, really, in his eyes – would be downright cruel. She was grateful, for herself and for Michael, that she could walk into that room freely, illusory though her freedom may be.

* * *

><p>He was thinking of what to say to her. He'd been sitting on his side of the booth for ten minutes, thinking. Plus the four hours he drove to get there. And the weeks since she'd been taken.<p>

Apologize. For sure he would apologize. Not for trying to stop her that day; he wasn't sorry about that and he'd do it again in a heartbeat. But for letting it get that far. For never truly putting her needs above his own. He put everybody else before himself, as long as everybody was a flag or an oppressed victim in a war zone or someone too dumb to help himself. Just not her. She'd stood by him for five of the hardest years of his life. And until the day she was taken, he would've left her if the cause was right. He would've been sad, sure, but he would've left. He had left her during those years, in fact. A few times. He always came back, but each time he'd left accepting that he might not.

He'd tell her what they were doing. He'd tell her Pearce was on board. He'd tell her they were narrowing in on Anson, which he hoped would be true soon. Good things only. She didn't need to know that he'd aimed a gun at Sam's head, or that he didn't realize he was doing it until he saw his own arm in front of him.

Good things only.

He had to find out how she was doing. What she was facing in there. She'd made a lot of enemies over the years. Rachel. Natalie. Eve. Any one of them could've found their way into this prison. Or found a friend in this prison. And that was in addition to the regular threats and dangers of prison, especially one for the worst of the worst.

Focus on the positive. Try to raise her spirits. Stay strong. He didn't want her worrying about him. She had enough to handle.

He took a few deep breaths and jiggled his legs to burn off some of his adrenaline. Looking at the glass in front of him, he fixated on a single fingerprint smudge near the bottom. That otherwise perfect glass was supposed to delude you into thinking you weren't alone, that you hadn't been ripped from each other. But the fingerprint gave it away. The glass divided you, separated you. Isolated you. That it let you see each other just added insult to injury.

He forced himself to look away. A buzzer interrupted his thoughts and returned his focus forward. Then the door opened.

It was the orange prison scrubs that did it. Seeing her little body swallowed by that awful uniform cracked his own glass walls. The cracks let the outside in and his inside out. Weeks' worth of stress flooded his heart and swelled in his eyes and finally found escape through his lips. They weren't open more than a centimeter or two, and he dammed himself up again as soon as he could, but his guilt and fear gushed out in his breath anyway. And finally, he had the release he so badly needed.

* * *

><p>"Now you see why I never wear orange," Fiona said nervously.<p>

"You look beautiful," he told her, his voice breaking. A million thoughts raced through his mind. _Fix this. Find Anson. I broke her. Break her out. Kill. She's gone. _Hours passed in his mind before he found his voice. "I'm gonna get you out," he choked out. "I promise you that. And we're – we're getting close. The CIA – "

"I love you, too, Michael." Fiona's voice was tinged with her usual exasperation with his emotional cluelessness, but mostly she sounded wounded. "We don't have much time. I don't want to talk about that."

He understood. But he couldn't talk about their future, because he didn't know what it would be, and that scared him. And he couldn't talk about their present, because it was too horrible. So he'd talk about their past. Funny stories they should be remembering over a bottle of wine, or under thick blankets in a cottage in the French countryside, or to pass the time on sniper duty. Not in a prison visitation booth.

"You know what I was thinking about the other day? That little dingy bar in Belfast. The Black Sand Pub." He didn't bother to wipe away the tears rolling down his cheek.

"You mean where we met," she said.

"And I made the mistake of asking, 'Would you like to dance?'. Then you pulled a snub-nosed revolver on me." And just like that, Fiona was listening to Michael McBride.

"That I did," she smiled. "And you said – "

"'I assume that means yes.'" Michael laughed in spite of himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed. "I remember thinking I'd need to get much better at weapons checks if I was going to be around you," he said. "I felt sorry for that guy, you know? The one who made the mistake of trying to assemble a gun faster than you. I felt bad for him, but mostly I was jealous of him. I wanted to be at that table with you." He took a moment, trying to find another happy memory to share with her when all he wanted to do was kick the glass, beat the glass, shoot that fucking glass. "You know, I never you told you this, Fi, but the next day I called my handler and asked him to take me off the assignment."

She waited for him to continue.

"I asked him to take me off because I knew what I was going to do to you, and I didn't want to do it." He choked out the last few words.

She lost her breath and clutched the phone, holding him as close as she could.

"I'm so sorry, Fiona. I'm so sorry for everything. I did this to you." He looked down and shielded his eyes with his hand.

"Michael, don't. Look at me." She waited. "Michael, look at me."

He did, slowly.

"You did what you thought was best. We both did, for all these years. We both did. We chose this crazy life for ourselves. And frankly, Michael, I may well have ended up some place like this anyway."

Michael looked at her skeptically. "Since when? You've never said that. I doubt you've ever even thought it."

"Well, this place is pretty humbling. I was cocky before. With good reason, of course. I'm still better than most. Certainly better than you." She grinned at him, and he tried to smile back. "But this kind of life – after, what, twenty-three years of living by my own rules? It catches up with you. I'm starting to understand why they say the house always wins."

"The house is not going to win here, Fi." That characteristic firmness was back in his voice.

She gave him a little smile. "I know," she lied.

A loud buzzing tone filled the room just then. "What's that?" Michael asked.

"I don't know," she said. "They use that sound for almost everything. What time is it?" She looked to the clock on the side wall. "Ten after seven. Huh. I'm not sure, then." She ran her fingers through her hair. "You forget what it's like to be in a totally new environment," she said quietly. "To not speak the language. I hate not knowing what the buzzer is for."

He understood completely, and that was one of the dozens of things he was worried about. She didn't know the system. She'd learn it faster than most anybody, probably, but she didn't know it yet. It terrified him. But he didn't want to convey his fear any more than he already was, so he just nodded sympathetically.

She shook her head quickly, shooing away her scary thoughts. "How were you able to get on the visitors' schedule so quickly? Mills was surprised."

"Mills. The warden or the C.O.?"

"The warden. Wait. There's a C.O. named Mills? How do you know that?"

"I've learned everything I can about this place. And to answer your question, I had some help cutting through the red tape."

Fiona looked intrigued.

"I called . . ." He trailed off, dreading to finish. "I called Tom Card."

Intrigue turned to disbelief, which almost immediately turned to rage. "You didn't."

"He was the only one left, Fi. Pearce, Sam, Jesse – everybody's trying and everybody's struck out. Raines won't return my calls. Nobody can help. Or will help. I don't know."

"Michael, you told me he was the one who pulled you out of Ireland. He didn't give a shit about me then. Why would he help us now?"

"Because he owes me. I did a job for him. Well, we did. Me, Sam, and Jesse."

"What kind of job?"

"Punched a big hole in a cartel trying to get a foothold in Miami."

"Well, don't thank him for me." She let out a deep breath. "What else have you been doing?"

"Hmm, well, I just got back from a cruise."

She stared at him.

He grinned. "Another job. For Pearce this time."

"I hope you didn't have too much fun."

"I had a better time than Jesse, but no, not a fun trip. It's a nice ship, though. We should go." He swallowed hard. "We'll go."

Fiona nodded and blinked away the water pooling in her eyes. "How's your mom?"

Michael shifted in his seat. It'd been a few weeks since Daryl Jordan had broken into Madeline's house, since she'd shot him. Madeline wasn't like Michael and the others. She didn't just move on after shooting someone. She'd been having regular nightmares ever since, plus two panic attacks. Nothing he was going to tell Fiona about. Happy stuff only.

"She's good," he lied. "Nate's visiting for a while, so she's enjoying having him around."

"Ruth agreed to stay with her again?"

Whoops. Damn it. "Uhh, no. Ruth left Nate. She and Charlie are in Vegas."

Fiona's face fell. "Ohhhh. What happened?"

"Who knows? Nate – you know, he has some theories about he did this or he didn't do that, but I think it just didn't work. It was never a solid relationship."

She nodded. "It's too bad. What are they going to do about Charlie?"

Michael shrugged. "I don't know. My mom wants him to fight for custody, but . . . I don't know. He has good intentions, but he's a kid himself in a lot of ways. They both are. Honestly, I don't know what would be best for Charlie."

She nodded. "Tell me about Sam and Jesse."

"They're fine. Well, Jesse's still recovering from the cruise. We had to give him a fake deadly virus. The vomit and heart palpitations were real, though."

"Do I want to know?"

"You do not."

"How about Sam?"

"He's fine."

"Tell him I'm sorry for hitting him."

Michael looked down and was quiet.

"What?" she asked.

He looked her directly in the eye. "He let you go, and now you're here."

"What? No. He didn't let me go. I got him to give me my purse, and then I knocked him out, and then I unlocked the cuffs. He didn't tell you?"

"Yeah, he told me, and I didn't believe it when he said it, either."

"What are you talking about?"

"He admitted he could've stopped you." By now Michael's heart was beating faster and harder, just as it had when he'd confronted Sam that horrible day.

"Oh, Michael. Michael, you're not mad at Sam. You're mad at me. This was me. Not Sam."

He shook his head vigorously. "I am not mad at you, Fiona."

"Yes, you are. You were trying to fix everything and I didn't let you."

He just kept shaking his head.

"Michael, you can be mad at me. I was furious at you for locking me there to begin with. It doesn't change anything. You're not going to stop trying to get me out, are you?"

He looked at her incredulously.

"Right. Of course you're not. You can be mad at me. It doesn't change a thing. It's okay."

He rested his head in his hand. "Why did you do it, Fi?"

"At first it was because it was the smart move. It was the only way to take away Anson's leverage. But then he was trying to make you burn your entire team, and you were going to do it. You were going to do it, Michael. After everything he's done to you all these years, you were still going to do it. I couldn't let you do that to them. Not for me. You know that, Michael. If it were anybody else, you know that's what you would advise them to do."

"To go to high security federal prison for something they didn't do? I wouldn't advise anyone to do that." He dropped to a fierce whisper. "I'd advise them to fake their death. I'd advise them to move to the South Pacific. I'd advise them to – "

"To listen to their boyfriend?" she interrupted.

He didn't respond. He just sat there, trying to look like he wasn't fuming.

"And you're not mad at me, hmm?" she said.

"Fiona," he sighed. "Fine. I'm mad. I'm mad at Sam. I'm mad at you. I'm mad I didn't let you shoot Anson in the parking garage. I'm mad I didn't kill Larry four years ago. I'm mad I haven't gotten you out yet."

"Michael," she said, "you can't – "

He kept talking. "I'm mad I didn't make Rebecca. I'm – "

This time she cut him off. "Rebecca? What about her?"

That's right; she didn't know. He was in such a time warp that he'd forgotten she didn't know. "Uhh, things got a little messy after I left the loft." Without missing a beat, he had gone from an uncharacteristically emotional, choked voice to that slow, dry tone he uses when he's talking about work. It was remarkable, really, how seamlessly he's always shifted between the two. "Turns out Rebecca was working for Anson. It was her ammo you saw in that warehouse."

"Oh god."

"Yup. And her job was to blow up the plane Jesse was about to get on. Anson knew I'd figure out a way to undo whatever damage I caused by planting that chip. So he was going to do something I couldn't undo."

"Jesus. But you said Jesse's okay?"

"Totally fine. The whole team's fine. Except Rebecca."

"Wow. He's full of surprises, that one."

"To say the least."

"And what I was going to say before is that you can't blame yourself and not blame Anson."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I blame Anson. I figured that went without saying."

"I'm just saying don't forget who is ultimately responsible for all of this. Take all that anger and put it into finding him and – " She stopped suddenly, realizing it probably wasn't a good idea in a prison visitation room to say "and then kill that son of a bitch." Law enforcement types would consider that solicitation of murder. They wouldn't care that's how Fiona always talks. "Find him," she said instead.

"I understand." And she knew he did.

Michael took a few seconds to really look at Fiona, study her. "Tell me how you're doing."

"I'm fine, Michael."

"You don't look fine."

"You said I looked beautiful." She gave a halfhearted laugh.

"Fiona," he said softly.

"Michael, there's nothing you can do. Whatever I tell you is just going to give you more to worry about. You don't need to worry about me. I'm okay." Fiona wanted to protect him as long as she could. He would be in for a doozy when he left.

"When's the last time you ate?"

She scoffed. "I'm not sure ingesting what's served here can be considered eating." He started to say something, but she cut him off. "Dinner." That was true. "And I ate breakfast and lunch as well." That was not.

"Are you sleeping?"

"Are you?" she fired back.

"No."

"Well, I'm . . . I'm trying."

"You need to rest, Fi. You have to – " This time he stopped abruptly. He was going to say "you have to stay alert," but he realized nobody knew that more than Fiona herself, and it was the last thing she needed to hear.

"I understand," she said. And he knew she did.

"The insomnia's not all bad," Fiona said after a while. "I've been remembering a lot of things. You know what I thought about last night?"

He shook his head.

"That night in Hamburg." She smirked.

Michael laughed at the memory. "Before or after you stabbed me?"

"Both. Do you remember what we were fighting about?"

"I remember **you** decided I hadn't been careful enough on the buy with Hein, and then that turned into me not valuing your input enough, and then you emphasized the point with a corkscrew."

"I was right, you know," she said slyly.

"You were right about Hein." He nodded, then turned serious. "You couldn't have been more wrong about the other," Michael said tenderly.

She smiled and leaned back, finally relaxing a bit. "Tell me another one."

"A memory?"

"Yes."

"From Ireland?"

"From anywhere."

"Hmmm. This one's more of an image. Remember that dress you wore when you were poking around that hangar at Opa-Locka? The Zamans?"

She raised her eyes up, sifting through all the covers she's had over the years. Then she grinned and returned her focus to Michael. "I do. Thank god for toupee tape."

"I hoped it would fail, myself."

"I still have that dress. It's in one of those boxes in your mom's attic."

"I'll make sure to have it at the loft when you come home." After a moment, he said, "Your turn."

"An image?"

"Anything."

"Hmmm," she murmured. "You know I love Johnny." A sly grin took over her face.

"Indeed I do."

"And Mr. and Mrs. Jensen."

He nodded, smiling.

"But my favorite image of you as you is when you sleep. It's the only time you look relaxed."

"You going soft on me, Fi?"

"Shut up."

He gave her a half smile. "If you can see me sleeping, then you're there, and that's why I'm relaxed."

Her eyes welled up with tears again. She wiped them away quickly. "I'm tired of crying. Tell me something happy."

Michael thought for a moment. "The first time you made dinner for me."

She wrinkled her brow. "You got food poisoning."

"But I got to spend the night with you."

"Yeah, vomiting every twenty minutes."

"But I got to spend the night with you."

She sighed contentedly. "You're one of a kind, Michael. That's for sure."

He smiled back. "So I've heard. Oh, I almost forgot. I put money in your account. Should be available now."

"That was fast," she said. "They said it can take up to a month."

"Yeah. Sam."

"Well, that explains it. Thank him for me."

"I will. And my mom ordered you some books. They'll – "

Just then, the buzzer sounded. Within a second, a guard was in Fiona's side of the room. "Visiting hours are over," he announced loudly.

Michael nodded to the guard and raised his hand to show he understood. "I'll be back as soon as they'll let me."

She nodded. "All right."

"And what I was saying is that the books will come from Amazon. We can't send them to you directly."

Fiona smiled. "Tell her that's very sweet and I appreciate it." Then her face turned serious. "And thank you, Michael."

He shook his head. "I don't deserve your thanks. I got you into this."

"I'm not doing this again, Michael. Just shut up and accept my thanks."

He just gave her a tiny smile.

The guard stood next to Fiona. "I love you," Fiona said.

"I love you, too, Fi." They both hung up their receivers. Fiona stood up, and Michael watched as the guard escorted her, again by the arm, out of the room. But this time they stayed near the door as he handcuffed her. Michael saw them, and Fiona knew he saw them, and both of them did their best not to cry.

* * *

><p>"It's unusual to get visitors this fast," the guard said as they walked. "You just got here, right? How'd you swing that?"<p>

"I didn't. It just happened."

He whistled. "Your husband must have some good friends somewhere."

She didn't say anything. Instead she replayed the visit in her mind. Michael looked and sounded okay, but she knew he was much worse than he let on. She had a pretty good idea how his conversation with Sam went after she'd surrendered. She hoped that was the worst of it, but she suspected it wasn't. And she knew neither of them would ever tell her about it.

* * *

><p>In the end, the glass made it easier. It shielded him from the truth. The glass wouldn't let him get to her – wouldn't let him smell prison soap, wouldn't let him see slip-on canvas flats, wouldn't let him feel those goddamn orange scrubs. Today he could convince himself they were in a nightmare they could wake up from. Today he could pretend her hair smelled like citrus shampoo, could picture strappy leather heels, could remember the softness of that white dress. The one she was wearing the last time he touched her. The one she should still be wearing.<p>

So the glass saved him, in a way, because he couldn't get to Fiona.

But he couldn't get to Fiona.

The last time Michael couldn't get to Fiona, he killed Strickler.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: The visit scene is one of my favorites in the series. Maybe my favorite. This story was also a joy to write. Difficult, but a joy nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed it.


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